Presentation of Idaho reports on Idaho Public Television is made possible through the generous support of the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great state of Idaho.

With additional major funding provided by the estate of Darrell Arthur Kammer in support of independent media that strengthens a democratic and just society.

And by the Hansberger Family Foundation.

By the Friends of Idaho Public Television.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

And donations to the station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

The legislature has wrapped up.

And while we're still waiting for the governor to take action on a few last bills, there's plenty to talk about.

Including a handful of vetoes.

The first of the year.

I'm Melissa Devlin.

Idaho reports starts now.

Hello and welcome to Idaho Reports.

This week, our pundits give you a rundown of the end of the 2026 legislative session.

What stalled, what passed, and what the governor still needs to take action on.

And plenty of bills did pass.

More than 360 of them, in fact.

We obviously can't list them all, but highlights include funding for high needs students, shifting appointments of directors of Fish and Game, Transportation, and Parks and Rec from boards to the governor, repealing the Women's Commission from code, and an update on the existing prohibition on people profiting from publicity of their crimes, otherwise known as the Son of Sam Law.

That passage in Idaho was prompted by concern that Brian Kohberger could benefit financially from media rights deals.

Joining me to share their takes on this session is Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow.

Senator Ben Adams and Senate Majority Leader Lori Den Hartog.

Senator Den Hartog, I want to start with you.

What were the highlights of policy bills that passed this session?

I think one of the highlights for me was, a bill called the Earned Autonomy for Schools.

It has to do with, our charter schools and our traditional school districts when they meet certain metrics, for student achievement, that they are released from reporting requirements.

And, other things tied to funding streams from the state.

So it gives them more autonomy to spend the state dollars at the local level, as they see fit.

And I thought that was a really great piece of legislation.

Senator Adams, what were some of the highlights for you?

See, some of the highlights were, I did a, carried a joint memorial, joint resolution, I guess, it's a letter to Congress asking our congressional delegation to take action on that name, image and likeness issue that has been, devastating through college sports and athletics and has become a financial problem for public institutions across the country.

And so, that passed through, it was great.

There was also a piece of legislation that passed unanimously through both chambers that removed the statute of limitations for lewd conduct with a minor.

It really shows the the unified position that the Idaho Legislature has to protect kids.

And to pursue those who would do them harm.

How about some highlights for you?

I know that you have other opinions on the session, but but you did get a couple bills passed the finish line.

What were some of those highlights?

You know, as I sift through all the budget, we'll talk later.

But I think the highlights, going off, what Senator Adams said is child protection.

I'm just so pleased that after months of working with a family, we passed Isaiah's Law with wide bipartisan support, I had a lot of co-sponsors on that.

And that really makes a shift and tells the courts, we're not going to send kids in the arms of substantiated abusers, whether physical or sexual.

And two other child protection bills came through with that same group.

Looking at really, the rights of children when they're in our custody and doing early detection if we're concerned about them.

So that's the big highlight.

I'll piggyback on Senator Adams with his response about child protection and safety.

There were also a number of bills that stalled this legislative session, including every immigration proposal, particularly one that would have mandated 287(g) agreements between local law enforcement and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

There was a bill that would have given the Attorney General more powers to go after local elected officials if he determined that they weren't doing their jobs.

And then also, a bill that would have allowed Lewis and Clark State College to rename to Lewis and Clark State University.

So many other proposals stalled: rat abatement and kratom regulation and and, some budget proposals.

But but, I did want to get your take on, on some of those that didn't make it to the finish line.

Well, I'm so pleased that those immigration bills really didn't make it, because we heard local law enforcement stand up and say, it's not that we're against working with federal government.

We're not going to let the federal government tell us what to do and lead us around by the nose.

So I was pleased to see that.

And the other bill, I think, in the House about courthouses and guns that just doesn't make sense.

And for people who aren't familiar, this is one that would have allowed people to carry firearms into county buildings, but not necessarily the courtrooms themselves.

But that that just a mess.

I think about Ada County Courthouse.

I just went there for jury duty, and there are all those other offices there, and it would be a nightmare for people to figure out how to delineate who gets where the guns go.

So I think that was a wise that that failed.

Senator Adams, I know that there was a lot of concern from sheriffs all across the state and other law enforcement agencies that mandating these agreements between ICE and local law enforcement was just a step too far.

They already had agreements in place but the mandate was an issue.

And there was some talk that, you know, why is the Republican Party not backing the blue like they say they do?

I just I wanted to get your response to those criticisms.

Sure.

We support law and order.

We support enforcing the law in the state of Idaho and in this country.

And, our, our local law enforcement in this situation.

And obviously my county sheriff was one of the most vocal on the issue.

In Canyon County, Sheriff Kieran Donahue.

Correct.

And he's entitled to his opinion and nobody likes to be told what to do.

But we have a responsibility in the legislature as well to make sure that the will of the public is being followed.

And so when it comes to immigration policy, it is not a question where Idahoans stand on that.

And, so as a legislature, we're going to take that position that we want active participation.

Were you concerned that there wasn't already active participation after hearing from sheriff after sheriff after sheriff that they already have agreements in place?

Most of those agreements are not formal agreements.

They're they're just, general association.

And so a sheriff may or may not enforce.

And I think, I heard in a, in a hearing, that there wasn't active assessments on whether someone was or was not illegal when they were being detained, which I believe is already the law of the state.

So, there are some holes already not being filled.

I think one of the challenges and we feel this as legislators is we're talking about federal immigration law, and we're dealing with it at we're having to deal with it at the state level because of the level of interest from our constituents and their interest in making sure that law and order is enforced and is followed through.

But our federal government has failed.

And that's why I think this issue has been pushed down to the states.

And that's why I think you've seen the struggle for us trying to figure out what is the right path on dealing with something like immigration at a state level.

There's only so much we can do, but I think that's why the policy has been so hard is we feel I feel like we've been let down by our federal partners who have failed to fully enforce the federal immigration law.

And so we're stuck kind of with the pieces, trying to figure out what that looks like and making sure that there's law and order in our communities.

Making sure that our communities are safe and that we know who's here.

We know where they're working.

We understand that they have the right to be here to work or not.

Whatever the case may be, I think this is kind of an overarching theme that I have heard over many legislative sessions, and certainly not unique to the Idaho Legislature, right?

Whenever there is a governing body and you have a number of people saying, please listen to us, where the experts, we are telling you that this would not work, and then the legislature goes ahead and passes it anyway, and and this happens in every state.

It's not just the Idaho Legislature, but what do you say to those criticisms that lawmakers aren't receptive to feedback from the experts, the people who have the boots on the ground every day?

I would say we are receptive.

I would say sometimes there can be legitimate disagreements between, and we're balancing.

There is always a balance between, you know, who's considered an expert and what we're hearing from constituents who we represent.

And our sheriffs represent constituents, too, right?

They are constitutionally elected sheriffs for our counties and they're they're hearing the same thing.

And I think some of them heard, through this process, what the people of Idaho want or are expecting them to do as sheriffs of our counties.

I wanted to give you a chance to respond.

You know, just briefly with the immigration piece, I think, I don't think that we've had a serious problem in Idaho.

And we saw the terrible incident in Wilder over the summer.

And I think in this case, those bills were being pushed by Washington, DC and the Trump administration.

We, you know, saw letters, you know, people being encouraged to do that.

And I think that's why the sheriffs came out and said, hey, we don't we don't take our direction from the feds, we take it from our citizens.

But I think to your other point, I do think sometimes we could do a much better job of listening to our constituents.

And I can say in a couple of bills that went through my committees, we had overwhelming opposition.

One bill, House Bill 822, which criminalizes physicians, teachers and counselors, had over 200 people in opposition and only eight in favor.

And we didn't even know that going into the committee hearing, which was only 22 minutes long.

So 95% of the people said, hey, don't do this, especially with a punitive fine of $100,000.

Unheard of.

Unconstitutional in my eyes.

We're not listening to the citizens, overall.

I think I think we can do much better in many other realms.

And of course, the budget conversations dominated this legislative session after base maintenance budgets for state agencies took a 5% cut to their general funds.

And I should mention that Idaho Public Television was among those agencies that took that 5% hit.

But the Joint Finance Appropriations Committee did put back some of those funding, pieces in enhancement appropriations.

Highlights include higher education, the military division, health education programs, judicial programs, including treatment courts, the attorney general's budget for salaries and operations, Idaho State Police, the Division of Medicaid, the Division of Welfare, and the Assertive Community Treatment Program.

Senator Wintrow, you sit on the Appropriations Committee and you had voiced concern that that your colleagues would not go back and pass those supplemental appropriation or sorry, enhancement appropriations.

Ultimately, they they did, in some cases, arguably a lot of the most pressing ones.

Was there a little bit more, more of a nuanced approach than you were worried about.

Well, I think the big problem is that we did an ongoing across the board cut, which basically harmed the structural balance of the budget, quite frankly.

And we did add back in the Act teams as mental health, you know, those sort of community treatment programs.

But it was only after four people had already died.

Those cuts came in December 1st because of the budget crisis we found ourselves in when we cut the revenue too hard.

And it wasn't until the last hours of the session that we reinstated that.

And in fact, I was really worried we wouldn't.

I don't know that we put much back for higher ed.

We put in we took like $4 million of CTE funding.

We only gave half of that back, which is a pipeline for our workforce.

So I don't know, we we patched a few holes, but we did so on an unstable, and a very shaky ground.

Even as the JFAC co-chair, Josh Tanner, said, they were using funds from other places to patch a hole.

And I was reminded of yesterday when I walked by the Carnegie library, the permanent building fund got raided.

And that will sit there, boarded up, vandalized, because that was part of the funds that were taken.

And again, not necessarily we should not have had the necessity to do those things in the first place.

And, Senator Den Hartog, are you happy with the appropriations process?

So it was a wild ride this year, watching our members, watching our members on the committee, doing a lot of work and doing a lot of good work, in my opinion.

I think I have a little bit different take than Senator Wintrow on on the budget process and how we ended up.

I look at I look at it more as a rightsizing of government.

I know some feel that, you know, we did too much with the tax cuts last year.

And I think the type of decision points we were forced into this year would not have happened and don't happen, frankly, unless the legislature is conditioned to think about it, in a different way.

And to really, because the the situation I've always found ourselves in, in the last many years that I've served is as the revenue has been increasing.

It's a where can we spend all the money.

And I think the focus this year was different and I think it was appropriate.

We're still going.

It will be difficult again next year, even with the ongoing.

I also believe we have a structural issue, but I believe that the ongoing cuts that we did were necessary.

And so I think that's going to have to continue through next session.

We still plugged a lot of holes with one time funds, and we're going to have to deal with that next session as well.

Senator Adams, your take.

Yeah, this was, the first time since I've been in the legislature where we didn't have a surplus.

We had a deficit.

And, I was on the finance committee when there was a surplus, and I got to take a good look at those numbers.

And government has grown monetarily from 2020 to now, pretty significantly.

And so I wasn't too sad about some of the cuts.

I felt like some some places we cut where we shouldn't have and some places we didn't cut enough where we should have.

But, being on the finance committee is, I think, the most challenging job in the legislature.

And it takes a lot of work to get to where we actually have budgets that are written and out in front of the body, and some budgets died.

And, we did bring them back.

And I wasn't happy with with all those cuts either.

But, you know, here's the thing, though, over those years that we talked about, we had a surplus.

That was also when we had ARPA funds and we had bills.

We had we had, all this deferred maintenance, right?

Water infrastructure projects, schools.

We still haven't even done the the job we should do on school.

So I think those were one time funds that were put in to do some investment in infrastructure most, you know, readily.

But over the years I was on JFAC for 12.

You know, I've been in the legislature 12 years and been on JFAC in the House.

Every year we always undercut the governor's budget.

We always said we're the most frugal, we're the most conservative, we've rightsize government.

So are all those years we were lying?

which is were we conservative then, or are we conservative now?

I just think we cut way too hard.

And last year we shouldn't have done what we did with $450 million off the revenue stream.

I mean, anybody has a ranch, a business, a farm knows when you have the bills to pay.

You don't cut the mortgage, you don't not pay the mortgage you raise more money.

And we had the money.

We just cut it.

And tax cuts that benefit the wealthy.

And now we're balancing the budget, really, on the working families and people with disabilities, in my opinion.

And I just want to say just briefly, yeah, in the last six years the state revenues have been in the surplus.

That's that's a reality.

Aside from the additional moneys.

Because we've had so much growth, right?

Unprecedented.

And a lot of that.

And you could argue that some of that was from those investments, those federal dollars.

A lot of it is because of just the population growth in the state, new business coming in because we are a, tax friendly state for businesses.

One more note before we go.

There are a handful of lawmakers who are not seeking reelection this year, including Senator Dan Hartog's father, Representative John Vander Woude.

We caught up with him last week to get his advice for new lawmakers.

As you're heading out for your final session, what do you think the crop of new folks need to keep in mind as they stick around?

So just to remember to make friends, make friends in this body because of those people you work with you spend three months with, you get to know people and make friends.

Because if you don't have friends here, it just gets pretty miserable.

I've I've had a you know, there's the friends I started with aren't the same friends that are here now after I've been there this long, but it's just you just make new friends as new people come in.

I think good advice for any field, but assuming if you win your reelection bid, this will be your first time serving in the legislature without your dad.

Yeah.

How's that?

It has been an incredible honor, to be able to get to serve with my dad and a really special experience that, I don't know, that any.

Anybody else has had.

And it will definitely be different without him there.

And to his point about making friends, in in the realm of what we do, having someone who you can be completely honest and open with and understanding what it is that we go through on a day to day basis is is really incredible.

And the fact that I've, that my dad has been one of those people for me has just been really special.

So I know he's thrilled, he's happy, he will be great.

And and my mom is thrilled, but I will miss.

I will for sure miss.

And you made it without tears saying, I know, I know, I couldn't, I couldn't make it without tears on the floor when we, when I talked about it then.

You know, too, I have to say, I really applaud, Senator Den Hartog.

She's been a great majority leader.

She's forthright.

She's honest, she is, you know, forthcoming and the to to, and really respect Senator Adams as well.

We've worked on bills together, both of us.

Co-sponsored bills.

You know the Certified Family Home making sure that people can get you know, a tax, you know, availability there.

Right.

So I think that is really great advice is finding the issues we have in common, even if we disagree about things.

That's what I value is finding the common ground in working together.

More in common than not.

Thank you all three for joining us this week.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Joining us to discuss some of the last actions of the legislative session is Kevin Richert of Idaho Education News.

Dr.

Jaclyn Kettler of Boise State University and James Dawson of Boise State Public Radio.

James, I want to start with you.

We learned Thursday that Governor Little has vetoed five bills.

His first vetoes of the session.

Can you give us a brief overview of those pieces of legislation?

Boy, they're kind of archaic and not a lot of people paid attention to them, aside from maybe one, which would be these daycare deregulation proposals.

It would have made it so in-home child care providers, if they have their own children above a certain age, they wouldn't have to count against the number of employees that they had.

Because an adult can only supervise X amount of children at a time, depending on their age.

Otherwise, there was a telecom disconnection bill that would have given more power to the feds, which is why a governor Little vetoed that.

A couple different budget bills, said that lawmakers didn't, you know, account for, once every few years, there is a 27th pay week for state employees.

And so they didn't allocate money to that.

$50 million that was going to the rainy day funds.

He wanted back in the general fund to potentially have a buffer for the fire year.

You know, anyone who's been in Idaho this year, it's been dry and hot for the winter.

So hopefully that's not going to be a thing, but we'll see.

And then cryptocurrency fraud, you know, measures.

He thought that it was a poorly written bill and might actually make fraud more likely.

Which is interesting, because we all know that there are a lot of people who are susceptible to fraud with whether it is gift card scams or cryptocurrency.

And these stations are popping up in gas stations and stores all over the state.

Right.

Even a bowling alleys.

I saw one at a bowling alley the other day.

So beware.

Beware throwing your turkeys.

Because there's not a legislative fix this year to address that, so just be a little bit more savvy.

Kevin, I, you and I were just discussing.

I don't know that we've ever seen vetoes come so late.

I think we were kind of wondering if Governor Little has lost his veto stamp.

He showed Thursday that he hadn't.

Right.

I mean, here we are.

We're in April.

We're almost a week after the legislature adjourning for the year, the governor finally vetoing bills.

There are still a few bills on his desk, that he has not yet acted on.

He has until next week to act on.

The most notable one is the radiator capped bill that we talked about last week that would basically eliminate, taxpayer support of teachers unions that came to his desk on Thursday.

He has until April 14th to act on it as of, as of the taping here on Thursday, He's not yet acted on that one.

One aspect of this conversation that we have been talking about for years now, Jackie, is this push and pull between the executive and legislative branches.

That has certainly come into play this legislative session.

What are some of the things that stand out to you?

For sure, I mean, like vetoes can come about for a variety of reasons, but we've definitely seen these tensions and disagreements between the executive and legislative branch on a variety of issues.

Some sessions they focus a lot in one area.

This session, we've seen a lot of debates about budget, other sorts of powers and roles.

And so I think this is always an interesting dynamic that plays a fairly substantial role in how some of these policy debates go.

And really on the budget and on tax issues, which were the dominant issues of this legislative session, the governor deferred to the legislature.

Basically everything he deferred on the roll out of the One Big Beautiful Bill tax cuts, making those retroactive to 2025.

That was not part of his original budget.

He he gave in to the legislature on many of the budget cuts that the legislature wanted, including cuts to the Idaho Launch program.

So it's interesting that here we are in April, the governor, drawing a line on as, as Jim said, some fairly arcane legislation.

But when it does come to the general fund, the that's that's an important part of this conversation where we're talking about not just fire season, but also if some of the tax collections come in lower than we anticipated after conformity.

Well, and that's what we heard consistently from JFAC members, especially, Representative Josh Tanner, the new co-chair from the House, which is why they left, you know, at least from the documentation of, what, $230 million on the bottom line?

That was something that they were laser focused on in JFAC, this year.

How much can we leave as a cushion?

I think he said a "cushionary aspect" to, Clark Corben of the Idaho Capital Sun.

That that was just a very high priority for them.

We still don't know if next year they might be willing to dip into the rainy day funds.

That was something that was not going to happen.

The governor made that clear, the JFAC co-chairs made it clear.

They were not interested in going after those rainy day funds that were sitting there, even to shore up some of the cuts that were made to the maintenance budget, the, the, the kind of baseline general funds that shore up those agencies.

Maybe next year, depending on how the economy is going.

And there's a lot that can happen between now and next January.

Yeah.

And a lot that could happen with this budget between now and January.

I mean, this is built on a lot of assumptions in terms of the the impacts from the One Big Beautiful Bill, the revenue that the legislature think is, is going to come in versus what the governor thought was going to come in.

Got a lot of question marks still to, to watch between now and January.

And this is, of course, an election year.

We have the primaries coming up.

We have general elections coming up.

With a very Republican legislature like Idaho's, a lot of those high profile match ups are going to be in May during the Republican primary.

But we still have some purple legislative districts left, too, in November.

Some of this might play into how people vote or who shows up to vote in places like West Boise or in the Moscow-Lewiston areas.

Jackie, we have less than two minutes left, but are there any races or issues that you are looking at in particular in these May primaries?

Well, I think we've seen regularly, like great committee chairs have a lot of power in the Idaho Legislature.

They can really influence what bills are advancing, what gets a hearing, what gets voted on.

And so I think that there's probably a few committee chairs that may be high priorities for different sorts of groups on different issues, immigration, education, different types of things.

Because who hold that position can make a big difference.

As as does the makeup of the committee.

So just a few races, a few changes.

District one, district 15.

Suddenly things look a little different.

I think in the primary, I'm going to be watching two Senate committee chairs who have, pretty high profile primary challenges.

Jim Guthrie, the chair of the Senate State Affairs Committee.

He has made a lot of enemies on the right for pushing back against conservative legislation.

Raul Labrador, Attorney General, endorsed Guthrie's opponent in the May primary.

That's going to be a race to watch.

Dan Foreman, also, the chair of the Commerce committee in the Senate, who has been in the middle of this whole debate over the teachers union bill.

He's being opposed by sitting three-term, Representative Lori McCann, who's opposing him.

More from the center.

Those are two primaries to watch.

About 15 seconds left, Jimmy, what are you watching for?

I think Kevin and Jackie put it well.

That's succinct.

Well, thank you all so much for joining us.

And thank you for watching over the last few months.

This is our last show of the season, but be sure to keep an eye on all of our friends' coverage at Idaho Ed News, Boise State Public Radio, Idaho Capital Sun, and all of your local newspapers.

And we sincerely appreciate your viewership and your support, and we'll see you back here in the fall.

Presentation of Idaho reports on Idaho Public Television is made possible through the generous support of the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great state of Idaho.

With additional major funding provided by the estate of Darrell Arthur Kammer in support of independent media that strengthens a democratic and just society.

And by the Hansberger Family Foundation.

By the Friends of Idaho Public Television.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

And donations to the station from viewers like you.

Thank you.